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Brian Tracy

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

The Extraordinary Power of Expectation

Every single day we hold onto certain kinds of expectations about ourselves, about others, and about our circumstances. Whether we realize it or not, these expectations directly influence our lives. In fact, you always hold onto conscious and unconscious expectations in various situations.

The expectations you hold onto influence where your focus and attention goes. As a result, these expectations become targets, or in other words plans for the future. In fact, these expectations directly influence what you WILL or WON’T attempt to do, and essentially what you BELIEVE is possible at any one moment in time. Moreover, your expectations influence your attitude, decisions, behaviors, perspectives, as well as your interactions with others.

So as you can see, our expectations direct our lives in numerous ways. This is all well and good of course if we hold onto expectations that serve our greater good. However, for many people, this, unfortunately, isn’t the case. Often our expectations are flawed because they actually delete and distort our interpretations of reality to our detriment.

Emotions Influence Your Expectations

Consider for a moment the emotion of fear, worry, and anxiety. Whenever you experience these emotions you are at that very moment creating a set of negative expectations. For instance, when you worry about something, you are at that moment expecting that something will go wrong. And with this expectation at the forefront of your mind, you are now going to make certain decisions and take specific kinds of actions that meet that expectation.

Now, of course, whatever you are worried about might just be a figment of your imagination. In fact, often our worries never come to fruition. However, we don’t tend to believe that at the time, and as a result, our negative expectations lead to certain behaviors, decisions, actions and interactions that might not serve our greater good. In fact, those negative expectations might actually lead us to unfavorable circumstances that otherwise we might never have experienced because our expectations, of course, direct our focus and attention.

The emotions you experience throughout the day will provide you with insights into your current set of expectations. As such, whenever you experience a particular emotion it is helpful to ask yourself:

What emotion am I experiencing?

What am I expecting as a result?

Is this expectation helpful or unhelpful?

Does this expectation get me closer to my desired outcome?

You, of course, no doubt have certain goals and objectives that you would like to achieve in any given situation. However, your emotions can often cloud your judgment and therefore lead you down the wrong path. You must therefore always be conscious of your emotions and identify whether or not the expectations these emotions are creating are helpful or unhelpful. Are they moving you towards your desired goals and objectives, or are they pulling you away from them?